writing about music for people who like music

Electroacoustic music by composers from all over the world, including juried student work from the University of Lille III.

https://fr-fr.facebook.com/SIME-689117931140405/

Mixtur 2016 (Barcelona)

21 April - 1 May

Contemporary music of all types and varieties but only one level of quality: excellent!

http://mixturbcn.com/es/festival-mixtur-2016-intro/

Echofluxx 16

4 - 7 May, 2016 (Prague)

Prague Modern, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Maciunas Ensemble, and, as always, the Echofluxx Ensemble, this year featuring an opera by David Means using text from a novel by Michael Karman.

http://echofluxx.org/ECHOFLUXX16/index.html

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Last year, the Echofluxx festival continued its tradition of offering the most untraditional music and video imaginable. Dan Senn started the festival in 2011 with one principal idea, invite the finest and most experimental musicians and just let them do whatever they wanted. That that formula has been successful is amply illustrated right here: http://echofluxx.org/ECHOFLUXX16/index.html I encourage everyone to visit that site; it’s not only informative, it is entertaining and enlightening as well. It is almost–I don’t think I’m exaggerating, not much–a pretty representative glimpse of the most interesting new music today.

And film, too. Last year the festival closed with a mini-film festival of some of the brightest film makers in the world.

But enough of the generalities. The specifics are these.

Echofluxx 2015 took place in its new home, Paralelní Polis, which is a coffee shop on the ground floor–very convenient–and meeting rooms in the floors above, including a quite commodious and sonically excellent space given over in May to the musical mayhem of the Echofluxx festival. The first act in the new space was a superb set by Bob Ostertag, which was a thrill for me personally, as I have admired Bob’s work ever since I first heard “Getting Ahead” in 1990, ten years after its first release. I could go on and on about this set. Best probably to shut up and let the music sound. Here are two short clips to give you a taste of this delicious music.

The next evening featured Jaap Blonk and Joanna Hoffmann. I took video at this festival as always, and the less I say about why none if it can be used in this review the better. But Dan Senn always films things, and posts them to youtube, so all is well. First up was Jaap Blonk, whose amazing music probably needs no words of mine to recommend it. I usually do short clips for Asymmetry articles, but this time I have to link you to entire performances. I hope that is OK.

Joanna Hoffmann brought three of her creations to Prague this year. A real treat that was. Go to her website and revel in the visually and musically rich world you will find there. There was revelling in Prague for her videos, that is for sure.

http://www.johoffmann.com/

Next day we had an evening with David Daniel, playing all sorts of things while strolling about the space, including an abbreviated version of “The Art of Manipulation” by Jakub Rataj, which has music and dance. You know how well that combination has worked in the past. It’s obviously still working very well.

Since I do not have any clips of the film festival, sadly, it remains only to say a word about a presentation of the vs. Interpretation Book on the closing night of the festival. This was particularly fun for me as I was one of the performers in the ensemble for this intriguing music.

I apologize for getting this report ready so late–a lot of interesting and painful things happened in my life in the year after this splendid festival. But here it is, at last, just in time for this year’s Echofluxx festival, which I promise to write about–and post–much more quickly. I swear that it is so.

The 2015 version of Festival Mixtur started out by herding us all outside the venue, outside the complex where the venue resides, across the street, and into a large square outside Can Fabra, where, to some electronic music by Octavi Rumbau, two dancers (Magdalena Garzón and Dolors Acosta) meandered us back to the hall in…

In conversation with Maria Cristina Kasem and Ricardo Mandolini, artistic directors of the international electroacoustic festival SIME. Asymmetry: The SIME festival (Semaine Internationale de la Musique Electroacoustique) has established itself as a very important festival in only a few short years. Can you say something about how it got started? Ricardo Mandolini: The first SIME…

Echofluxx 14 had a whole different vibe from the preceding year, even though it was in the same place and many of the same people were there. This is a tribute to Dan Senn’s ability to keep everything fresh and new from year to year. It is a festival about which very little can be…

Echofluxx returned to Tracfačka Arena for the 2013 and 2014 festivals. This is a large space with an impossibly high ceiling. Its sonic personality is quite strong, a force to be reckoned with. And interestingly enough, the first music for Echofluxx 13 was a set of two pieces by Michael Schumacher that had been performed…

Tutuguri is a really splendid CD. In the first place, the sounds are gorgeous. All of them. In every track. Ear-grabbingly gorgeous. And in the second place, the pieces are well made–so cunningly constructed as to sound fresh and new even after they have become well-known and familiar. The first track, Irama, starts the album…

As you may have already noticed, Asymmetry has recently reviewed Gibello’s first CD, Labyrinthe/c104 goto N901, and had a little conversation about her on this podcast. We were already planning to attend the INA-GRM Présences electronique festival, so when we found out that she would be presenting the MOLF at Instants Chavirés only days before…

Echofluxx is, I think, unique in Czech festivals. It presents the very latest of the latest, which is naturally very risky. But without festivals like this, willing to ride the very edge of the edge, where would tomorrow’s music be? Having traded a donation to the first Echofluxx festival for attending in person, Asymmetry decided…

Upcoming shows that Asymmetry will be attending: 1 April. Emmanuelle Gibello at Instants Chavirés I’m writing this report on 1 April. I apologize to everyone for leaving it literally to the last day. If you’re in Paris already, go see this show. http://www.instantschavires.com/spip.php?article797 5-7 April. INA-GRM: Présences électronique You have a couple of days left,…

The five pieces on Adam Stansbie’s Isthmus are presented in chronological order, tempting one to draw conclusions about the evolution of style. But when I succumbed to that temptation (in my mind) all I found was that these five pieces are different. And really, isn’t that all that’s necessary? That a composer gives you something…